Revolutionary Road: The Game - ARGUE with your spouse! FIGHT OFF suburban depression! MANAGE to stay alive despite a looming calendar full of inane dates and a pointless existence!
The holidays are all about sales at the mall, what the ratio of whiskey to nog is in your egg nog, and how depressing everything is. Luckily, Hollywood is well aware of this and provides cinematic accompaniment to go along with the holiday blues. Kate and Leo’s reunion movie Revolutionary Road is a perfect example; critics are hailing it as one of the most depressing way to spend a few hours since all of your old high school nemeses appeared on Facebook.
Since most people don’t consider playing a depressing game to be fun, it’s no wonder that the video game industry hasn’t churned out a lot of melancholy games. There’s no Schindler’s List: The Game, or The English Patient: Nintendo Wii Version. Sure, there have been plenty of games that were depressing because they were bad, but not many in the “depressing on purpose” category. However, a few have squeaked by that would make extremely depressing movies. Here’s a list for your enjoyment.
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Oh, I’m so naive to be shocked by this:
Movie studios traditionally spend up to $25 million a year per nominated film in an attempt to secure Hollywood’s highest honor. This time around, Fox Searchlight (”Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Last King of Scotland”) and Paramount (”Babel,” “Dreamgirls”) are leading the pack. With marketing budgets commonly running around $40 million to $50 million for high-profile films, that extra $25 million smarts. But many studios feel it’s worth it.
The above is from an article in yesterday’s Daily News, called “The business of Oscar.” It seemed like a fitting, albeit depressing, follow up to Monday’s post about the push to get Half Nelson star Ryan Gosling a best actor nomination. No wonder our “who-we-think-should-win” and “who-we-think-will-win” lists rarely line up.
Daniel Schechter’s number one goal in his films is to get people talking about issues. It seems to work. Last night, after the screening of his newest film, In Debt We Trust, people couldn’t stop talking. Schechter says it’s because the film’s topic–the alarming problem of credit card debt and consumption in America–is one everyone gets. Like the best political documentaries, In Debt We Trust does its job when it comes to getting people talking and thinking and even doing something about the problem. Although the topic is sobering–even depressing and alarming–Schechter uses humor and an amusing original soundtrack to ease us through the message.
Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast
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